The
article by Stromquist addresses the municipal reform of politics in the city of
Cleveland. He argues that the middle class achievements in political
reform have been overestimated, and there has not been enough attention paid to
the restructuring of municipal politics due to class warfare. Social
turmoil ensued when the middle-class skilled laborers or old immigrants clashed
with newer immigrants looking for unskilled factory jobs, especially when
protests and strikes broke out which were backed by trade and labor unions.
This social turmoil on both sides of the economic strata added to the
decay of the party system, which in turn helped to shape the political
structure of municipal politics in Cleveland. Stromquist says "What
we have lacked is a more precise understanding of how the social turmoil of
these decades intersected with a decaying party system to produce changes in American
politics, particularly at the municipal level, that created openings for reform"[1]. Although admittedly Cleveland was not
representative of a large class of American municipalities, it “reveals with
particular clarity the interplay of class forces in constituting a new politics
of reform”[2].
Flanagan
argues in her article that the male and female City Clubs, with their
involvement in the local politics (particularly in the city of Chicago) and
conflicting views on municipal issues, were mainly responsible for shaping
progressive reform. She gives
specific details regarding the male and female City Clubs with regards to the
municipal sanitation services, public education, and the issue of police power
(especially during labor strikes).
She argues that, “the vision pursued by members of the Woman’s City Club
has not been studied, in large part because of the tendency in Progressive Era
political history to study men”[3]. She argues that men and women drew
their conclusions regarding municipal reform from their daily experiences,
where men focused primarily on profitability and fiscal efficiency and women
relied on their experiences in the home environment and sought the well being
of everyone[4].
I
think both of these points are excellent and definitively valid, and I don’t
think it would be appropriate to assume that one historian is more correct than
the other. Both focus on different
aspects of progressive reform methods in different cities. Cleveland was better suited to reform
through labor unions and class distinctions since its economy was based on
transportation and heavy manufacturing, and it wasn’t a primary storm center of
labor conflict like other large American cities[5]. Chicago had very high membership
(totaling in the thousands for each) and political involvement from the city
clubs for both men and women[6]. Also, Chicago had a long history of
prominent and powerful women ever since the creation of Hull House and other
settlement houses in the 1880’s.
The common denominator in each article is that a minority group (the
immigrant working class in Stromquist’s and women in Flanagan’s) had differing
viewpoints on social issues. These
both eventually led to escalation in the form of strikes and police violence,
which brought attention to the issues and eventually led each to put
progressive reform policies into place.
[1]
Shelton Stromquist, The Crucible of
Class: Cleveland Politics and the Origins of Municipal Reform in the
Progressive Era, (Journal of Urban History, Vol. 23 No. 2, Sage Publishing,
January 1997), 195.
[2]
Ibid, 197.
[3]
Maureen A. Flanagan, Gender and Urban
Political Reform: The City Club and the Woman’s City Club of Chicago in the
Progressive Era, (The American Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 4,
University of Chicago Press on behalf of the American Historical Association,
October, 1990), 1044.
[4]
Ibid, 1046.
[5]
Stromquist, 196.
[6]
Flanagan, 1035.
